More than 24 hours after the nation was plunged into total darkness, the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) was yesterday still unable to say what had exactly caused the islandwide blackout.

However, the company identified three unusual events that took place around 4:16 pm on Saturday and theorised that these may have contributed to the power outage:

. a trip on the Bogue-Duncans 69kv Transmission Line on the northwest coast;

. a voltage collapse on significant parts of the power system; and

. the loss of power supply from two of JPS’ Independent Power Producers (IPP) – Jamaica Private Power Company (JPPC) and Jamaica Energy Partners (JEP).

“Within seconds, these three events triggered a cascading of the system that resulted in the entire island being out of power,” JPS senior vice-president Tom Dorsey told journalists at a hastily called news conference at the JPS head office on Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston.

However, he admitted that the company’s investigations were still underway. Dorsey also suggested that weather conditions could have contributed to the break in power, since there were isolated lightning flashes, which are also capable of tripping out the transmission.

Flanked by JPS communication director Winsome Callum and Tony Ray, the company’s director of external affairs, Dorsey said: “We immediately activated the company’s restoration plan, with the deployment of emergency services and operational personnel… Within two minutes of the event we initiated self-start procedures at the generating stations.”

These responses, Dorsey said, were necessary to stabilise the system. He said, too, that the restoration of electricity to customers had to be done on a phased basis to ensure continued stability of the system.

“Within five hours of the event, supply was restored to meet 25 per cent of the demand,” he said, adding that 50 per cent of supply was restored six hours after the blackout. He admitted, however, that despite the mass restoration, few isolated cases of customers without service still remained and assured the country that the company was working to address these areas without electricity.

Dorsey reiterated that the investigations will include a thorough examination of the sequence of events in order to determine the initiating point of failure. He, however, was unable to state the cost of the damage, adding that the report would include that information.

“This information will facilitate the preparation of a full report on the incident, which will be submitted to the Office of Utilities Regulation and made public at the earliest possible time,” Dorsey said.

Earlier yesterday, Radio Jamaica reported that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller had blasted JPS for its failure to provide an explanation for the power outage. Simpson Miller also demanded that the company submit a detailed report of the possible causes of the blackout.

“We are still working on our report and we intend to meet with the minister (of energy Phillip Paulwell) tomorrow,” Dorsey said. He said, too, that the company was not anticipating any load shedding activities for this week as last week’s “load-shedding exercises were complete”.

However, yesterday morning some areas of Portmore experienced power outages for up to half-an-hour – an occurrence which Dorsey could not account for.

“None of the events today (Sunday) have been reported to be linked to the problems yesterday (Saturday),” Dorsey said.

Saturday’s power outage could cause several Jamaican households and businesses to incur damage to appliances and other electrical machinery. However, Callum insisted that people with damaged electronics should go through the claims process.

“…Call 188-call-JPS. We need a written report, because the investigations must be conducted,” she said.

– henryr@jamaicaobserver.com